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Tag Archives: Pro-life

The anti-abortion lobby has mostly abandoned its old tricks — like murdering doctors in the name of life — and moved on to more law-abiding ways to intrude in personal decisions. Their new weapon is very creepy.

Panels of men are changing laws in late-hour votes and after supersonic “debate” to create ever creepier ways to make the lawless, law-abiding.

They play amateur gynecologist and shove medical equipment up women’s vajayjays against their will, the advice of their doctor, and for no reason other than to see if a fuzzy, pixellated bean photo will scare the bejeebers out of women. It does — the equipment, not the bean. Besides, women with ultrasound wands hanging from their nether regions are in no mood for abortion lectures.

I’m not a woman nor do I pretend to know what it feels like to be one. However, I’m fairly certain that when a woman finds out she is pregnant she doesn’t say, “Gee, I think I’ll have an abortion. I’ll invite my girlfriends. Maybe grab a salad and spend a little time at the spa before we go for drinks. It’ll be fun.”

Despite what some would have you believe, no one wants an abortion. It isn’t a cavalier decision or a comfortable experience. Myriad are the ways women come to that awful decision. It may not be compatible with what you would do or lack careful consideration of all the options, but it isn’t yours and it isn’t easy.

South Dakota‘s proposed “justified homicide bill” has been withdrawn for the time being, but don’t be surprised if it returns like cow flop on a South Dakota rancher’s boots.

What’s the controversy? Read from the bill for yourself, “Homicide is justifiable if committed by any person while resisting any attempt to murder such person, or to harm the unborn child of such person in a manner and to a degree likely to result in the death of the unborn child, or to commit any felony upon him or her, or upon or in any dwelling house in which such person is.”

Some proponents of the bill, including bill sponsor and anti-abortion advocate Rep. Phil Jensen (R-South WTFistan), claim the bill has nothing to do with abortion. Opponents, and even some advocates believe that’s hogwash – and if you can read, that seems a reasonable interpretation – and doubt that it’s legally sound.

Legal wrangles over abortion have gone non-stop since Roe v. Wade became the basis for the law of the land, but the nation rarely looks at the pretzel logic behind the legality debate.

Pro-lifers often argue a fetus is a full-blown human being and that it’s justified, if not morally correct, to perform a sort of vigilante capital punishment on abortion providers because they’re “murderers”. So if self-appointed juries can mete out capital punishment for “murdering” abortion providers, how can many of those same people support state-sponsored capital punishment.

And for the record, pro-lifers could reverse this tangle of law and morality to bash the other side. After all, why is it OK for pro-choice advocates to argue it’s OK to terminate a pregnancy, but are equally inflamed about abolishing capital punishment.

The legality of this issue is valid, but it’s a dicey legal case that’s spread beyond just the courtroom. For years, both sides have short-sightedly used Roe v. Wade as a one-issue litmus test for judge approval to the exclusion of all other issues. Judges should be made up of more than this one issue.

Abortion is a tough nut, a moral and legal tangle whipped raw by high emotion. There’s no perfect answer because it isn’t a zero sum issue with a clear winner or loser – no matter how much the opponents and proponents wish it would be.

Perhaps we’d all be better off to step back and think about this a little more dispassionately instead of counting the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pinhead.